19 May 2014

Bath


A late start this morning gave us the excuse to stay around Bath today. The main attractions for us were the Bath Abbey and the Jane Austen Centre.

As we were walking along through the town, we came to the shop outlet for Highgrove. Those of you who've met Prince Charles will know that he lives at Highgrove. We didn't even score an invitation to visit, even though I bought a jar of marmalade. I was miffed I tell ya. Anyway, Charlie wasn't even there, so some commoner had to serve me. I'm never going back there again (Robyn would though!).

After that we decided to go to Bath Abbey and have a look.

Here are a few views of the place. People are just dying to get in there (well they were).


Impressive from the outside

The floor is made of grave slabs.

 

The walls are covered with memorials.

Governor Phillip was buried here somewhere.

We found a couple of Thompsons remembered here, but no-one else who shares any of our family names.

It's a huge and very impressive building - the ceiling is so high that they have to keep the windows closed to stop clouds drifting through. It's also incredibly detailed and must have cost a king's ransom to build. Hundreds of people were in the church with us, all looking around, just like us. It would take half a day to look at this place properly.

There are buskers outside too. They seem to have about an hour each to play their "set". One of them was singing an Eric Clapton number, and around the corner another was giving us an old Bob Dylan number. Later, as we passed by again, a girl was sounding like Nana Mouskouri, accompanied by a young bloke on a guitar. All of them were very good and the crowd loved them. The prime spot seemed to be between the Abbey and the Roman Baths; not a bad little address !

Pulteney Bridge is one of several in town, which crosses the Avon River. It is the only one that actually has shops on it. We ate lunch in one of them, just the two of us, looking down at the water flowing over the weir below us - how romantic.

Also on the river was the boat; the Sir William Pulteney. Will was a big wig in town many years ago, with a bridge and a street named after him. The boat would carry us upriver for a fee of just 8 pounds each. What the heck - we're tourists. As usual, the guide told us many interesting things about the buildings, the river itself, the railway running alongside, and the canal on the other side of the railway. The canal actually joins the Avon River in Bath city; it just seemed a little strange having a canal beside a river.

It was all very relaxing until we saw some swans with signets. The women all rushed to one side to photograph them, and some geese and goslings nearby. Robyn got about 100 photos before the boat moved on. The tour went as far as Bathampton, where there is another weir on the river, blocking our way upstream. the captain turned us around and slowly brought us back to town again.

All of you who have read Jane Austen's books (Pride and Prejudice & all that) and come to love her, will know that she lived in Bath for 5 years or so. Robyn just had to visit her old residence, which is now a tea house (and a museum). I had tea with her, served by ladies in period costume. All very civilised until a group of Asians came in. The girl serving had to explain things three times before they understood that English Breakfast Tea was not a full English Breakfast.

After tea, Robyn went through the museum, and look what happened !

She turned into Jane Austen !



I walked through the streets and along the river bank. The whole place is made of sandstone and limestone - there are 2 big holes in 2 mountains around here somewhere. They don't just build a row of flats here. They build city blocks, and big ones. The buildings have names, and the address of the apartment is the number in the building. Ours here is the basement flat of number 48; there really are 47 other "houses" just like ours here, on both sides of the street. This makes Bath different to any other city I've been in.

All of these houses, plus more around the near corners to the left and right, are part of one development.

Finally, I couldn't put off the inevitable any longer - we went grocery shopping. There is a large Tesco in Bath. We resisted the aisles of alcohol, and bought food (sob). That marked the end of our day. Back in our basement flat, I watched television and Robyn cooked dinner - just like every other pommy in the country.

Too-ra then. See yer tomorrer.

Lex and Robyn